The highlight of the year!

Our MOMS Club plans an outing to this tree farm every year. It is the kind of place that you can go choose and cut down your own tree. They have has a lot of activities for groups. We love it. We didn't go last year because we got rained out, so it has been two years since the last time we went. Dale was fortunate enough to have some vacation time left and was able to join us.

So, here we are on a hay ride through the farm. We listened to how the Christmas trees are grown, and just enjoyed riding around.

Here is a picture of all the kids who were in our group.

They have a big sand hill and some sleds. Since we rarely get snow, this has to do. It was a lot of fun! This is from the very end after the owner brought some hay over to help give us more speed on the hill. All of the kids loved it!

We decorated a Christmas tree, stuffed some scare crows, cooked hot dogs over a fire for lunch and had S'mores for dessert!

Santa!

One of my friend's church has a Breakfast with Santa every year. It is fantastic. They ask for a toy or $5 donation per family in return for pancakes, and pictures with Santa, including a free one from their photographer! They do a fantastic job.

So, Santa waits until most everyone is done eating before he (and Mrs. Claus) makes his grand entrance. I didn't capture the full look of glee on Jordan's face, but this picture still captures her wonder when she first spotted him.
I got an even better shot than this, but that one is going in the Christmas cards. They were looking at the other photographer instead of me, but there was no fear of Santa. Jordan asked for a "walking dog" for Christmas.
A candy cane each was their reward for being good waiting in line and seeing Santa. It was a mess.

Take it Easy!

I told Trevor to give Jordan a hug, not a tackle. Several people have said that they think Trevor will be a football player. I didn't expect him to start practicing on his big sister.

Homestead

We visited a fair at Homestead, a community that tries to sustain itself and sells handmade goods and food. It was a lot of fun, even though because we didn't know what time all the crafts were and we missed out on letting the kids make candles, bookmarks, and whatever else they had.

But, they had an amazing petting zoo. My kids were in heaven and Jordan really took a liking to this kid. She wanted to be its mama. Badly.
They got to hold a tiny bunny, but this is a puppy. Trevor decided to spontaneously give it a kiss.

Moo! That is about all I have to say about this one.

The weather was lovely most of the afternoon, until about the time we sat down to eat dinner. Then, it started to get cold. But, it was a lot of fun and I think we are going to try and make this an annual Thanksgiving tradition.

Piano Man, and Girl

Honest to goodness, this was not staged. We were at my parents house for Thanksgiving. Trevor has a thing for sunglasses. Jordan has a thing for the piano. Then, they got together.
I am figuring that one day, I am going to have to shuffle my house around to make room for this piano. It belonged to my grandma, so I'll be proud to have it. Hopefully, we can hold off until the kids are old enough for the "playing" to resemble music a bit more than banging. But, I am super proud of my cute little piano players for making a couple of really cute pictures.

Candyland

Admittedly, playing Candyland makes me want to shoot myself (I am exaggerating, of course). However, the kids love it. Trevor is a little young, so all he does is throw the cards around. Jordan plays with all her might. She is getting a few more games for Christmas, so even though I am happy she'll be happy, I see a lot of tedious game playing in our future.

Besides, have you ever seen Elmo in Candyland? I have. He was having a great time.

Trick or Treating.

Of course, we went Trick or Treating. This is actually the first time that Jordan has gone in her life. Maybe that makes me a bad parent, but my kids go to bed early and I have an irrational fear of next-day-crankiness. But, we went and had a lot of fun. We had a backyard BBQ with our best friends and all went out together to get candy. Jordan is already obsessed with candy so this was a crazy night full of anticipation about getting candy, because that is what Halloween is all about.
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The Princess checking her loot.
Trevor didn't really understand this whole concept, but when he first realized what these people were putting in his bucket, he was totally on board. He had to have a lollipop, and he worked on it the whole time. And, yes, that is sweat on his head. It wasn't really hot outside, but it was warm enough.

He did a great job of walking and holding Daddy's hand. For the record, he has never held hands and walked before - he always refused. But he was totally cooperative that night. Those little legs got a great workout and he just kept going! Jordan got tired and had to be carried more than Trevor did!

We actually got a decent picture of the 4 of us, but this one captures the chaos and exhaustion that we had after walking all that way, and then realizing it was way past the kids' bedtime and we needed to wrap this up without unwrapping any more candy!

First Dentist Visit!

I finally got Jordan in to the dentist for a check up and cleaning. I was so worried she was going to be terrified, but she was quite calm and offered me a really cheesy grin while we were waiting for the hygenist to get started.
Now, give me a nice smile. Very good.

No cavities. Bright clean teeth. Direct order to stop sucking that thumb after the dentist looked into her crystal ball and informed me that Jordan will need braces. Duh. We're doing our best. If you are reading this, say a quick prayer that she can kick the habit soon. We are promising her a ride on a horse if she quits. It has already been a month without much luck.

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But, she got a prize from the dentist. It was so cheap it was demolished within hours, but I have proof she loved it for 5 minutes.

Pumpkin Carving.

Our annual pumpkin carving. Since this is only our second year, the pumpkins are not so creative, but still lots of fun! Here is Jordan helping Dale dig out the stuff.
Since I have issues with getting my pictures in the order I want them to be in, here is our final product. Classic Jack-O-Lantern. No (or very few) curves, as requested by the pumpkin carver (Daddy).

Trevor can say "apple" so all pumpkins this year are apples to him. We eventually gave up on trying to get him to say "pumpkin", and we even called them "apples" a few times ourselves.

I don't know if my pumpkins were old already, or what, but we found a lot of seeds that had already sprouted, like this one. I still made some toasted pumpkin seeds that turned out great (they were burned last year). But, it brought up a little debate among Dale and I - are you supposed to eat the shell? I have been eating it, Dale eats them like sunflower seeds. One of these days I want to google it and make sure I am not crazy for just chewing the whole thing!

Pumpkin Patch.

Going to the Pumpkin Patch is always so much fun! We were a little more successful this year with nobody getting hurt, either before or during the pumpkin time (look here if you don't know).

My little Fairy Princess! We had almost all of the stuff for this costume already in the dress-up box. I was really pleased with how it turned out. I had to buy a new crown and wand, but that was it!

I love this shot of Trevor. He already had the hat, and was wearing it a lot around the house. So, I bought a roll of yellow Duck Tape and added bands around his pants, and suspenders to a white tee shirt. This is probably the cheapest costume I will ever come up with and probably got the most compliments on it. People were crazy about the little fireman!

Not complete without some soot on his face!

Kailan & Rintoo

I give up on trying to get pictures to upload in order. Sorry. Not worth my time. I don't get it.

So, this is Jordan and Daddy feeding Kailan and Rintoo for the first time.
Proud girlie.
At Walmart holding our newest family members. On the way home, we discussed names. Dale and I had to run through tv characters names to avoid having the fish named "Fish". Kailan and Rintoo stuck. So, there we have it. Our first adventures in small pets.

Home Portraits

For whatever reason, I was suckered into the idea that you must have "professional" pictures at birth, 3 mo, 6 mo, 9 mo, 12 mo, and 18 mo, and then every birthday after that. I chose to keep some of our money and do some portraits at home. For Jordan's 18 month milestone, I put her little rocker out with the (former) golf course in the background. This is my favorite shot from her session.
So, I decided to do the same for Trevor's 18 month portraits, especially before our view of the (former) golf course is obstructed by our own fence. First, Jordan snuck a few pretty pics.

But, then Trevor got his turn. He was even saying "cheese" for me. In some of the pictures you can actually tell that he is saying "cheese".

Handsome boy....

To top off an excellent photo shoot, I actually got a good one of them together. That is no easy task!

Trikes!

We went outside to enjoy this beautiful fall weather. Jordan and Trevor both wanted to ride "bikes". Daddy just so happened to be leaving on his bike ride, so Jordan insisted on the usual hug, even though they are already ouside and on bikes.

Trevor doesn't actually know how to pedal, but he still gets around pretty well!

All caught up!

I finally got caught up on the kids' summer! There are several new posts that are so short they don't really do justice to the activities, but still, I got it done. Be sure to take a look!

Splash Pad

So, I guess we occasionally do something fun on our own. We missed the MOMS Club outing to this splash pad earlier in the summer. So, we loaded up one morning and went. It went really well. I even jumped in there with them! I didn't get many good pictures because it was so humid my camera lens kept fogging up.

Texas Sea Center

Again, we would never do anything cool without MOMS Club! We visited the Texas Sea Center in Lake Jackson. Both kids had a ton of fun. I managed to snap this during the one rare moment that they were actually near one another looking at the fish.

Trevor says "Fish!" in his own way, of course.

They have a touch pool where the kids can touch shells, crabs, etc. They aren't supposed to touch the fish, but they might have. You know, it happens.

Lubbock Vacation

My parents, Dale, the kids and I all loaded up and went to Lubbock to visit family that we haven't properly seen since the last of us moved away about 3 years ago.

We walked around part of the Texas Tech campus. Naturally, the kids' favorite part was the fountain.

We stayed out in the country with some relatives who are farmers. So, the kids got to ride in a tractor. They really had fun with that!


Jordan bonded with their dog. She wanted to go outside as soon as breakfast was done to play with Scooter! She and Scooter found a lot of frogs. Much to my surprise, my girly-girl is not icked out by frogs - at all. She had the time of her life playing with this one.

We took a day to go stay one night with my grandma. Jordan had a blast playing with this little tea set that happened to be set up upstairs. I had a blast taking pictures of her in her imaginary world and loved the way the light was coming in from the window. Later that day, she broke 2 pieces of the tea set. Grandpa glued it back together, but she wasn't allowed to play with it anymore.

All in all, it was a good, but tiring trip.

Fire Station

We would never do anything cool if it weren't for MOMS Club. In August we went to the Alvin Fire Station. They have a great presentation on fire safety, even though I think my kids are a little young to understand. They still had fun. They even got to see a fireman in full suit, and tour the station. My kids were the ones screaming and holding on to their mom for dear life during the siren demonstration. Most of the other kids thought it was cool.

Challenger Park

In July we went with MOMS Club to Challenger Park Learning Center. Again, my pics uploaded in reverse order. We did the outdoor activities first. But, no matter!

This is Jordan petting an alligator. Yep. How cool is that? This presentation was fantastic! We got to see a dove, a frog, the alligator, a flying squirrel, a tarrantula, and probably a few others that I forgot. We were all thouroughly impressed!

Outside, the idea was to see what we could catch in the water and learn about it. Jordan (and I) didn't catch anything but mud. However, our instructor caught shrimp, crawfish, spiders, and baby fish. We still got to see all of it!